Basic PC Housekeeping

stuartk

Hi All

In order to help people with their system problems I suggest people carry out the following first. This will save you time, misinformed advice and money, baring in mind that some so-called "pc techs" will charge you around £30 per hour for something you could easily have done yourself

• Clean ALL temp files by typing cleanmgr into the Run box
• Make sure a recent, working system restore point is present
• Uninstall any old programs you dont need
• Scan your system with MBAM (FREE) doing a full scan until NOTHING is found
• Scan your system with Avira
  
• Make sure ALL critical Windows Updates are installed
• Run a chkdsk /f/r on the hard drive
• Run a defrag on the hard drive
• Make a backup (preferably a system image) atleast once a week - plenty of freeware tools to do this

That should clear most virus / malware / spyware infections and resolve / identify any hard disk issues and if you are still having trouble after doing the above then there are many forum members who can take it from there. Do these things and your problem can be diagnosed quicker.

regards

Strider590

Remove "gadgets", posh screensavers and any unnecessary software.

Move saved files from your desktop to another folder.

dogmaryxx

Make a backup (preferably a system image) atleast once a week - plenty of freeware tools to do this

Such as???

stuartk

dogmaryxx wrote: »

Make a backup (preferably a system image) atleast once a week - plenty of freeware tools to do this

Such as???

Drive Image XML
DiskWizard (scaled down version of Acronis True Image -FREE for Seagate / Maxtor drives)
Micrium
Titan

ALL FREE

thirascule

Defragmenting the pagefile can also make a huge difference. I once had to look at an old Compaq which was crashing every 10 minutes or so just trying to run Mailwasher. There were no obvious problems but when I ran pagedefrag it showed that the 768Mb pagefile was in over 1000 bits. pagedefrag took about 30 minutes on a reboot to defrag it but windows worked fine after that. It also tidies up registry hives hiberfil.sys and a few others. It's here.
Not sure about running on vista, but as Microsoft own Sysinternals now it should be OK soon if not already.

stuartk

thirascule wrote: »

Defragmenting the pagefile can also make a huge difference. I once had to look at an old Compaq which was crashing every 10 minutes or so just trying to run Mailwasher. There were no obvious problems but when I ran pagedefrag it showed that the 768Mb pagefile was in over 1000 bits. pagedefrag took about 30 minutes on a reboot to defrag it but windows worked fine after that. It also tidies up registry hives hiberfil.sys and a few others. It's here.
Not sure about running on vista, but as Microsoft own Sysinternals now it should be OK soon if not already.

GOOD POINT

I have to go away for the weekend but I will update this post with links etc once I come back

regards

bigbum_2

stuartk wrote: »

Hi All

In order to help people with their system problems I suggest people carry out the following first. This will save you time, misinformed advice and money, baring in mind that some so-called "pc techs" will charge you around £30 per hour for something you could easily have done yourself

• Clean ALL temp files by typing cleanmgr into the Run box
• Make sure a recent, working system restore point is present
• Uninstall any old programs you dont need
• Scan your system with MBAM (FREE) doing a full scan until NOTHING is found
• Scan your system with Avira
  
• Make sure ALL critical Windows Updates are installed
• Run a chkdsk /f/r on the hard drive
• Run a defrag on the hard drive
• Make a backup (preferably a system image) atleast once a week - plenty of freeware tools to do this

That should clear most virus / malware / spyware infections and resolve / identify any hard disk issues and if you are still having trouble after doing the above then there are many forum members who can take it from there. Do these things and your problem can be diagnosed quicker.

regards

Thanks for this info, i'll follow the advise

How do i do the highlighted ones?

mr_fishbulb

Strider590 wrote: »

Remove "gadgets", posh screensavers and any unnecessary software.

I love my gadgets

mr_fishbulb

stuartk wrote: »

Drive Image XML
DiskWizard (scaled down version of Acronis True Image -FREE for Seagate / Maxtor drives)
Micrium
Titan

ALL FREE

I use and older (free) version of VersionBackup which I like. Their current version is not free, but you can still find the older free one on the Internet.

I also use MozyHome for online backup. I have the unlimited option which isn't free, but does give me piece of mind that I still have a backup if my house burns down.

They do have a 2GB online backup free product though - https://mozy.com/registration/free

RobTang

Just as a side note, if you do make full system images make sure you ALWAYS varify the image after you create it, even with the best apps somtimes makes a corrupt image, and it'll always be the one you need to restore.

nomoneytoday

Strider590 wrote: »

Remove "gadgets", posh screensavers and any unnecessary software.

They are my favourite bits